Bottle capping and sealing machine.



J. BRADLEY. BOTTLE CAPPING AND SEALING MACHINE.

APPLICATION FILED APR.25,1913.

Patented Nov. 16, 1915.

2 SHEETS-SHEET l- JEBRADLEY.

BOTTLE CAPPING AND SEALING MACHINE.

APPLICATION HLED APR. 25Y 1913.

Patented Nov. 16, 1915. v

2 SHEETSSHEET 2.

: around the mouth BOTTLE CAPPING AND SEALING MACHINE.

Specification of Letters Patent.

Patented Nov. 16, 1915.

Application filed April 25, 1913. Serial. N 0. 763,520.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, citizen of the United States, and a resident of Brooklyn borough, New York city, and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Bottle Capping and- Sealing Machines, of which the following is a specification.

y invention relates to that class of bottle capping and sealing machines in Which the closure is effected by the shaping of the cap of the bottle by means of serves as a shaping and compression or embossing die, In other words to that class of machinery in which a thin disk of metal, fiber, paper or other desired material is placed between the top of a bottle and a plunger above it, and is then seized and held in position on the top of the bottle and tucked and pressed into the'desired shape and position around the end of the bottle neck,

he capping and sealing of milk bottles with a fibrous disk presents peculiar difficulties which are not met with in the ordinary cappin and sealing of bottles containing wines, iquors, beer or corbonated or charged liquidsin general. A perfect seal or closure for milk bottles does not have to resist any special internal pressure, but it does have to stand considerable rough handling in transit; being frequently used as the means for lifting and holding the bottle on the part of the delivery man. Such'a closure must be air-tight, dust-proof, hygienic and sanitary, in the sense that it must not affect the-contentsof the bottle injuriously, and at the same time this closure must e easily removable.

To attain the desired result it is not sufficient that the fiber disk bent around, tucked under and pressed into close contact with the outside of the bottle neck ring as is sufiicient with ordinary metallic closures for beer and other charged a plunger which liquids; nor is it sufficient that the inner surface of the closure should be closely pressed at every point 1nto intimate contact" with the glass of the bottle. Such simple closures are apt to work loose when made out of the fiber ordinarily employed for caps for milk bottles as there is no adhesive affinity between the glass and the fiber, and

the natural springiness of the fiber tends to makeit resume its shape by bending away JosIAIr BRADLEY, a-

v tles, I have. devised should be simply from the glass enough to break contact somewhere. I have found that the best kind of fiber cap for milkbottles is one composed of a specially prepared fiber suitably applied but capable of easy displacement by giving it the twisting. movement would be necessary if the cap were a cap.

- To produce such SCTGW- mechanism shown in the accompanying drawlngs 1n wh1ch:-

Figure 1, 1s a vertical section of the plunger head with the plunger and its accessorles. 'Fig. 2, is a bottom plan of the plungerjiead on ine 2-2 of Fig. 1, looking at it in the direction of the arrows. Fig. 3, is a plan View on the same line, but looking in the direction of the arrows 3, 8 of Fig. 1. Fig. 4, is a plan view of a fiber disk from which the cap is to be made.

side elevation of the complete cap, partly broken away to show the interior. Fig. 6, is

a detail of a portion of the spring which pressure is applied to the foldingand tucking fingers.

Same letters indicate similar parts in the different figures.

A indicates part of the frame-work of the machine upon which the moving parts are mounted, and provided with the usual cushion-platform B, upon which the bottle shown in dotted lines is placed for the capping and sealing operation. This cushion platform B is intended to be thrust upward by mechanism not shown, but of usual construction, as for instance the thrusting mechanism shown in U. S. Patent No. 985,141, for machinery of this class to bring the bottle which is shown in dotted lines in ig. 1, into position plunger head. C, 0, represents four posts rising from the frame-work A, and supporting the guide frame D,'which is yieldably sustained bythe coiled springs E, E, surrounding the posts and adjustable as to their degree of normal compression by the screw blocks F. The posts and the bottle are shown in Fig. 1, as broken to indicate the variable or indeterminate distance between the bottom of the guide frame and the top of the supporting cushion plate.

The guide frame D is provided with an annular opening a, of sufficient size to accommodate a variety of bottles and terminatwhich 1 a closure for milk botthe capping and sealing 5 is so shaped that its lower surface will, press ing at the top in a guide-ring b, provided with a series of recesses c, 0, into which the lower ends of the fingers sink at the end of the capping movement as hereafter explained. The guide ring therefore serves not only as a guide but as a stop. Four upwardly rising pins (Z, (Z, are provided on the guide frame, which come against the lower surface of the plunger in their ascent, and lift the plunger while they permit the fingers to remain stationary until the upward movement of the bottle forces the spring-controlled fingers apart so as to close again upon the bottle neck and perform the operation of capping and sealing the bottle.

The plunger is mounted in a cross bar forming part of the frame work, partly shown at A. The plunger consists first of a hollow stem F, set in the crossbar and provided with a set screw 7", by which the hollow cylinder G, isheld firmly in place in the stem. The interior of this plungercylinder G, is equipped with two spiral springs g, h, which serve to keep the plunger-rod H, in its outward position as shown in Fig. 1. The tension of these springs is regulated by a tension slide 2', which may be moved more or less into the interior of the hollow stem F, as required, by the screw 1'.

On the outer or lower end of the-rod H, is the capping and sealing head I, which is removably secured thereto by a screw it, and

the center portion of the capping dis-r lx, into the mouth of the bottle to the desired depth and size and at the same time will hold the surrounding portion of theldisk firmly on the upper edge of the bottle neck. This action begins as .soon as the bottle -llifts the disk into contact with the lower surface of the capping head and the pressure exerted between the capping head I, and the bottle is constantly increased during the remainder of the lifting-operation by the resilient force of the springs g, h, which are contracted in proportion to the ascent of the bottle. The shank of the capping head is slotted as at j to receive a pin is by which the head is prevented from turning laterally and which may also be made to serve as a stop tofurther upward movement.

Screw-threaded into the lower end of the plunger cylinder G, and loosely surrounding the rod H, is a finger-supporting flange tube J, the upper surface of the flange being somewhat grooved to receive the rounded inner ends of the fingers which are rounded so as to get a proper bearing surface for the fingers when riding at different angles. As usual. these fingers are arranged. radially around the stem so as to form a circle and are simply hung by their inner ends upon said grooved flange. The fingers are preferably long enough to lend a certain amount of flexibility to their action in distinction tends to deflect the spring.

from the ordinary short and rigid fingers or links frequently employed as tucking fingers. The function of these fingers is to seize the ortion of the capping disk which projects beyond the periphery of the capping head I, and bend it down and around the bottle neck rim and finally turn the extreme edge in under said rim.

The peculiarity of these fingers as I use them is that by their combination with the guides, Z, Z, on the lower side of the plunger below the capping head, the fingers do not touch each other sidewise so as to make a practically smooth outer surface of the cap, but are held apart by the guides so as to form radial ridges, m, m, as shown in Fig. 5 on the outside of the cap while the fiber of which the cap is made is forced together more closely on the inside of the cap as shown by the mere lines of division at, n, in Fig. 5. These fingers L, L, are also rounded at the lower end as shown at 0, so that they will ride over the bottle neck rim, and set the fiber disk well under the neck. They also perform the functions of embossing fingers when they press the fiber down into the groo-ves'of the guide plate and corrugate the disk before it is ironed over the bottle neck. By this combined action, the device becomes a sort of combined punch add'embossing die.

The various operations performed by the fingers L, and the various positions assumed by them, are controlled by springs which may be independent strips of spring: metal or may be in the form of a metallic disk 7). They are secured by screws on the underside of a grooved pressure plate M, which is keyed to the tube J, by a key or feather r. The spring action is exerted on the rounded shoulders s, ofthe fingers L, and'when a metallic disk is employed as shown in Fig. (3,

it is slotted so as to give a number of peripheral tongues 15, corresponding to that of the fingers to be acted upon. These tongues, or springs, are so arranged as to over-lap an annular groove a, or if preferred, a succession of recesses, on the under-side of the pressure plate M, so as to permit the springs to bend into the recesses or groove whenever the cam-like action of the rounded shoulders In this way the rounded shoulder serves as a fulcrum on which the fingers turn as levers and the position of this fulcrum is important in order to secure a soft yielding efiect on the fiber disk. As shown in Fig. 1, this fulcrum divides the fingers about as one to three, sothat if the pressure exerted on the upper or short ends of the. fingers is, say, ninety pounds that at the lower tips woul be only thirty pounds. If however the fulcrum were placed midway of the fingers the action tages of this method of. applying the spring pressure to the fingers tioned that the fingers are thereby made independent of each other and can thus, collectively and individually, conform to the irregularities which may exist in the surface of the bottle neck to which the fiber cap is to be fitted.

The necessary pressure for operating these fingers as described, is secured as follows: Instead of the usual single coiled spring of considerable power around the plunger stem, I employ a number of independent spiral springs of less power S, S, preferably six, which rest in sockets in the upper surface of the pressure plate M, and in the lower surface of the pressure disk N, surrounding the cylinder G, and moved up andv down thereon to regulate the tension of the springs by the jam nut T, screw-threaded on the cylinder G. By dividing the spring pressure among several independent springs set radially around the plunger stem the device can accommodate itself better to uneven or irregular bottles.

The operation of my improved machine is as follows:-A bottle is placed on the cushi0n platform, and positioned so as to be directly under the capping head. A disk of fiber or other capping material is set on the guide ring of the guide-frame just above the bottle. By power, in the nature of a treadle or otherwise applied from below the cushion platform-frame is raised thus causing the mouth of the bottle to pass up through the guide ring, lift the capping disk, bring it into contact with the lower surface of the capping head which is pushed upward by the pins on the top of the guide rame. As the bottle is pushed farther up, into the plunger, the radial fingers are separated against the force of their spring c'0n trol until the bulge of the bottle neck rim has passed their lower tips when their spring control forces the fingers inward against the outer surface of the bottle neck, thus .e1n bossing and ironing the outer portion of the capping disk around the bottle neck and tucking it in under the bottle neck rim.

lVhen the extent of the up thrust has been L, L, may be menreached, the return begins and during the return, the spring control of the fingers keeps up an ironing as positioned on the bottle. While the spring control of the capping'head retains the top of the cap in position under full pressure until the mouth of the bottle has been withdrawn fromcontact with the fingers when the said pressure is released, and the cushion platform descends with the bottle fully capped.

claim I 1. A bottle capping and sealing machine comprising a plunger composed of a springcontrolled capping head including a rod, a finger supporting flanged tube loosely surrounding the rod thereof a number of radial fingers having their upper ends supported by a flanged tube, a sliding pressure plate surrounding said plunger and resting on the tops of said fingers, and a number of springs arranged around said plunger and exerting pressure independently on difierent portions of said pressure plate.

2. A bottle capping and sealing machine pressure on the capcomprising a number of sealing fingersv adapted to be arranged radially around a suitable plunger, and a corresponding number of independent springs, eachacting upon the fulcrum point of a different finger, whereby a lever-like action is imparted to said fingers during the sealing operation of said machine.

3. A bottle capping and sealing machine comprising a plunger, a number of sealing fingers arranged radially around said plunger, a guide-ring mounted at the outer end of said plunger and having as many guideslits as there are radial fingers and a guideframe adapted to be moved toward said plunger and having as many guide-recesses as there are radial fingers, whereby the capping material is caused to receive radial ridges during the capping and sealing operation of said machine.

GEORGE F. BENTLEY, W. P. PREBLE. 

